1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system and method for gesture recognition, and, more particularly, to systems and methods for electronically receiving and processing inputs, commands and information from a human.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information entry in a motor vehicle by the vehicle operator, such as address entry to navigation devices, has always been a challenging and often dangerous task. Traditionally, vehicle operators issue commands or enter information by operating various controls in the car, such as physical buttons for radios, or displayed buttons on the touch screen of a navigation system. Such operations typically require that the operator divert his eyes from the road in order to locate the desired buttons, and sometimes the operator overstretches his arms in trying to reach the desired buttons. This is especially distracting, time-consuming, and dangerous when the buttons are small, such as on a touch screen, and the task is complicated, such as when entering an address into a navigation device. Moreover, a touch screen has to be installed within close proximity to (i.e., within the reach of) the driver, thus limiting the design options for in-vehicle dashboard layout.
Instead of using touch screens, several auto manufacturers use a combination of remote control and graphical display (for example, BMW iDrive system, and Lexus Remote Touch Interface system), so that the graphical display could be placed farther away from the operator. Still, these systems require that the operator operates the remote controls, and looks at the visual feedback on the graphical display for information and command entry. Address entry on the iDrive system, for example, requires that the operator operates the remote control to select from a list of letters, states, and/or city names from the graphical display. This is still a lengthy and dangerous process as the operator needs to move his eyes off the road for a significant period of time.
An alternative method of input is gesture recognition using hand movements. However, due to illumination changes, reflections, shadows, and occlusions, it is often challenging to detect the human body parts, or gestures, in a robust manner under adverse operational conditions.
What is neither disclosed nor suggested in the art is a driver input system that overcomes the problems and limitations described above. More particularly, what is neither disclosed nor suggested is a driver input system that enables the user to provide inputs via spatial hand gestures such as by “drawing” alphanumeric characters with his finger on a surface within the vehicle, and that is able to interpret the drawn alphanumeric characters with a high level of accuracy.